Photos of the Week (Ending 12/22/06)

Every week I will pick my favorite photo or two from those I've shot for the week's paper. The first one was taken during the basketball game between Anzar High School and Overfelt High School, the former being one of our paper's local teams (though, ironically, Overfelt is in the town in which I live).

This shot captures basketball phenom Scott Benson catching one of his rebounds to score again (and a few seconds later, again). He averages @ 28 points a game, which is amazing for a high school player as the scores at that level are generally not over 65 total.


The second photo has a cute story behind it. Our paper was doing a story on John Z. Hernandez Park, one with worn out equipment and that few parents let their children go to play. I was told to bring back a photo of a child playing on the playground, not an easy task when one is as underused as this one.

It took three days of going there at all hours, finally I found a woman, Rebeca, and her child, Sophia, 5, walking by the park. She spoke only Spanish, and I speak some Spanish from years of it in high school in college. When I asked her in Spanish if she let her child play there her daughter screamed, "I'm going to play now!" and went over to the equipment and down the slide. It turns out her daughter plays there twice a week, usually (and unsurprisingly) alone. This portrait of her as she got to the bottom of the slide makes her look sweet and tough all at once.